Patch 2.4 ResponsesFollow

So now they 2.4 preview has been put up, the PTR is down and the background downloader has been hard at work on many a machine. This means that patch 2.4 is close to being out of the door and no more major changes will likely be made to it.

So the question is, given These patch notes, are you satisfied with what they are doing with your class?

As for me personally I am disappointed. We where told that this patch would be the patch that saved our class in pvp, yet I see nothing except a minor earth shield change and the toughness talent change that helps us in pvp at all. This was not going to be enough to help shamans be more viable.

The lead developer came by the O-boards and promised buffs--and now seeing the notes, I'd have to call him a liar. Granted, I'm already pretty satisfied with my PvE resto shaman... but that's probably because I only PvP for fun (lol cannon fodder).


As primarily a PvE raid healer, I absolutely hate the Earth Shield change. It's a PvP change that will make me waste more GCD's and force me to be more attentive to it. Poor attempt to fix PvP.

Ghost Wolf is apparently one of the few good things to come from this patch, but I haven't been enhancement in months. Thus I reserve comment. However, I am happy that I get to run from Supremus 1 second faster!

Toughness/Shamanistic Rage: reserve comment for my enhancement brethren.

GCD reduction on totems: a Godsend, in both PvE and PvP. Something shamans have been justifiably asking for for years (literally). Only real thing I'm looking forward to.

Totem "UI": I admitedly haven't seen/tried it. However, from what it sounds like, we'll still need add-ons to manage totems anyway. I also don't understand why you would only want to destroy one totem. If you need to replace it with another, just do it. If the fight's over or pats threaten, recall 'em for mana. /boggle

Tremor Totem change is okay, but still doesn't fix the core problem of a wand/pet/rank 1/critter/3-month-old-infant from very easily destroying the totem, which I think is the bigger problem. I have yet to meet a lock yet who doesn't have a totem-killing macro. With Totemic Mastery, the problem is not so much pulse timers (it's only 1 less second of their DoT's ticking) but destruction of the totem itself (see below). This buff really should have went to poison/disease totem, which rogues can stack absurdly quickly.

Healing Grace: It's better than nothing, I guess, but still "meh" and makes the resto tree even more bloated. Other healers still have many more "dispell fodder" options (and have had dispell resist talents for a loooong time). Earth Shield and Bloodlust are such powerful buffs that I doubt this will deter dispellers for very long. Our dispell protection should protect our REAL buffs: totems.

Chain Lightning change isn't a buff, it's noob protection.

Call of Thunder: Why? Just why??


Rest are just bug fixes. And with that, /endrant.

However, one thing that I do think the shaman community is overlooking is the indirect (supposed) buff to Bloodlust. Spell Haste will now lower the GCD, so bloodlust should now affect 1.5 second casts.

It was Flametongue (both the imbue AND the totem), and yes it was removed. I'm actually glad for that: it would have potentially been unbalanced. Besides, as a healer, I'm biased against any type of MS effect.

deleted for wrong forum.

Edited, Mar 19th 2008 9:23pm by BonYogi

It would have been a useless buff, it was something we didn't need, we recieved a half-assed attempt of a buff to try and appease our PvP needs.

I'm sorry, Burning Crusade came out January 2007. It is currently March 2008. That's one year, three months.

Shaman problems in PvP have not been so bad for an entire full three years.


The Flametongue-MS idea was a terrible fix. The reason that it was terrible was not because it was "making MS available everywhere". It was only a change to increase shaman desirability in Arena groups.

However, it did not address the actual weaknesses of shaman, and if they were to do that, then the shaman would be both more desirable to have in an Arena group and to actually play in an Arena group and not feel like you're the underdog of every conflict.

I don't believe that. The reason why Shaman do so badly now and did so well before is because TBC introduced new ABILITIES (and passive talents) to classes, and Shaman don't get, nor ever had, effective counters to the new abilities of other classes.

Frost Shock was the first snare to be given diminishing returns because the Shaman class could near kite every other class with it (every other as in half, not every single class other than the Shaman).

Aggro generation issues? Well, honestly, I don't have the actual proof to back anything I say up in that aspect. I fought against shaman in duels, but didn't play one or raid with one. The shaman class was considered overpowered by many long ago (people say that paladins were considered overpowered by the opposite faction at the time, but I was a Hordie and paladins were laughed about and called the noob class by everyone I knew). However, a problem with raiding using hybrids in Pre-BC WoW was that the best gear, Tier gear, was always meant for a certain spec. There was elemental shaman gear, and there was resto shaman gear. Enhancement shaman didn't use dual-wield, and didn't use great gear. I can't imagine them getting a pivotal spot in raids back then, let alone getting high aggro. I don't know the capabilities of elemental shaman of then at all.

CC problems and mobility? People had problems with Shamans using Frost Shock back then, while now it's no problem. Everything had proportionally lower health, and shaman could WTFPWN other players in 3-4 hits.

Heroics didn't exist back then.







Look, basically, what I'm saying is that, yeah, I understand that the shaman class is in serious need of buffing.

But the yelling and whining of being so victimized needs to be put in proportion. Shamans DID enjoy a time of unparalleled power in PvP.


And perhaps that's why Blizzard was so reluctant in giving Shamans new powerful TBC stuff.






And MS FT was a terrible idea. It was something, alright. It's like a hungry beggar asking for food, and you grab a handful of dirt and say, "This should hold you over, right?"

The regen from Water Shield is ridiculous.
Shamanistic Focus cuts a great proportion of mana, and is always up for an enhancement shaman.
Shamanistic Rage regens mana.
Elemental Focus cuts an even greater proportion of mana, and goes up often for a elemental shaman who can get 33% spell crit with lightning spells.


The pool isn't as big as a mage's, but the mana issue has been covered to death. (I view Water Shield as unfavorable, personally.)

Oh, damn, we were talking PvP. You've got me there then, 'cept here:



If it's PvP, we're assuming that you're getting hit. That's what happens in PvP.
If it's getting dispelled, all water shield costs is a global cooldown, not mana, and if you're elemental, you're not casting lightning bolts all the time and can reactivate water shield while running around for your life, or inbetween shock cooldowns or totem placements.

If you're resto in Arena, do you use Earth Shield on yourself or on allies usually?

And also, the fact that Enhancement is not used in high-rating Arena matches is irrelevant to my point. My point is that if there were to be an enhancement shaman in PvP, the enhancement shaman would NOT have mana problems. The mana problems of enhancement shaman are covered--the problems of enhancement shaman are not.

1) If you're not getting hit in Arena, then your Water Shield is up and you're still getting significant regeneration.

2) It's a question. I don't know how Resto Shaman work in Arenas, so I'm asking you if Resto shaman keep their Water Shield up for regen and Earth Shield others, or if they generally keep Earth Shield on themselves, gimping their mana management in Arena.

3) My apologies then for that. I'm making counterpoints to your statements because I'm trying to learn exactly why things are as they are with shaman. It's a process of getting out answers, and I'm not satisfied with simple end-all statements without asking the annoying "Why?" questions. I came to this forum quite a while ago to learn about shaman, and all I got was a bunch of Draeneipally's and jmfbg's (or whatever his name is)'s ignorant dribble, and then your gems of knowledge, carefully contained with a cynical attitude that often refused to reveal the why's, covered with "Don't bother, just don't spec Suicide anymore, it's terribad"s and "Elemental Shaman don't work before level 62, level Enhancement only"s. I leave you alone for today, but I'm just trying to eek out everything I can.

Resto Shaman + Ret Paladin for 2v2? Not a duo I would take part in. Resto Shammy + Ret Pally + ??? for 3v3? Um... again, not something I want to be a part of. Resto Shaman + Holy Pally + Warrior has been done, but if you'll check all the arena rankings, you'll note that it's not a team that typically makes a strong showing. 5v5, maybe, but 5v5 is already the one area where Shaman are viable, so... Yay?


I was thinking more in terms of all Shaman, not just Resto. And while the healer of any team is usually the focus most of the time, as I have already said and you've agreed on, if the Shaman is getting focused then he's got Earth Shield up on himself, which denies him the benefit of Water Shield. Earth Shield is the only thing we have that even comes close to passing as an instant heal; without it, even the durable Resto Shaman is going to bite it, and rather quickly with as easy as our heals are to interrupt. Crazy mana regen doesn't really do us all that much good if we die while receiving it.


Don't start with ridiculous overexaggerations, please. Druids do not pay 25-30% of their base mana to break snares. In any case, I would not mind seeing Ghost Wolf's mana cost increase significantly if it meant it would break snares and roots. As I've already said numerous times, having an ability that would break movement-impairing effects or CC/root the enemy would immediately solve 90% of this class' problems in PvP.

35%? What, if they're naked an untalented? Look, I'm no number cruncher, but I don't need to go look anything up on any website to know that I've seen Druids shift more than twice in any given PvP match, and they're always casting a ton of spells in humanoid form to boot. If you'd like I can send some of the videos I've got saved.


The difference being, of course, with the snare/root break, the Druid can actually get away in Travel Form so it's unlikely that he's actually going to be standing there taking a beating. Our armor isn't saving us outside of GW at the moment; it's certainly not going to do it in GW.


What I am asking for is either a snare/root break or a root/CC of our own to allow us to actually accomplish what we need to in PvP. I don't care where it comes from. If they have to up the mana cost on GW, great, fine, grand. I'm already sold.

Those 7 talent points, BTW, are not just lying around waiting to be used. All Shaman PvP builds are stretched extremely thin at he moment. That seven points means Elemental builds can't go far enough into Resto for Focused Mind, Nature's Swiftness, and Tidal Mastery. Resto can manage it, but just barely.


Just as soon as you do. If all I had to do was force Druids to shift four times before I could chalk up a W, I would be on easy street.